The news: Viome, the Seattle-area wellness startup that analyzes microbiomes, told GeekWire that it has more than 200,000 customers and expects to hit $100 million in revenue next year. The company also announced the hiring of Dr. Emmanuel Hanon as global head of R&D; Hanon was previously a longtime exec at GlaxoSmithKline.
Company background: Founded in 2016, Viome analyzes its customers’ microbiomes through stool samples in order to make food recommendations. The idea is to foster health through microbes, which make up more than half of the cells in the human body. The 160-person company sells a $199 “Health Intelligence Kit” and a $199/month subscription plan that includes vitamins, probiotics, and two Health Intelligence tests per year.
Viome has evolved to now develop therapeutics, which is why it recruited Hanon, who will lead a team to analyze Viome’s data and “turn this knowledge into vaccines and drugs to prevent and intercept chronic diseases.”
Viome licenses its technology from Los Alamos National Lab, which is run by the Department of Energy.
The company has a flurry of competitors including Thryve, Psomagen, Thorne, and others that offer microbiome tests.
Leadership: Viome is the seventh venture from CEO Naveen Jain. Best known as the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace, Jain also co-founded public records firm Intelius as well as Moon Express, which aims to take paying customers to the moon.
“We need to move away from managing the symptoms of the chronic diseases and focus on understanding the root causes of chronic diseases, cancers, and aging,” Jain said in a statement. “The only way to do that is to take advantage of massive datasets that are indicative of progression of diseases and use powerful Artificial Intelligence to identify the mechanisms of action.”
Previous funding: Viome raised $36.4 million in 2019. A recent SEC filing from February shows an additional $3 million raised. Viome’s investors include Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Total funding to date is $80 million.
